Life, Death, and Expiration Dates

I am little torn about how I feel about “Life, Death, and Expiration Dates” by Michelle Hair. To be more precise: I have two opinions about it. First: “Life, Death, and Expiration Dates” is a Young Adult novel – and it works for that genre. The main characters have to deal with everyday school problems, fall in love for the first time and well… are recruited by a shady secret agency named UMBRA as agents because of their special abilities. Ava and Sean are assigned to get close to a local gang, so UMBRA can monitor their activities. Of course, this gets dangerous quite quickly and they have to fear for their safety. The story has action, suspense and a little romance – so it absolutely fits the targeted audience. … but … Second: “Life, Death, and Expiration Dates” made me roll my eyes sooo often. Almost everything about this book is so ridiculous – at least from my perspective as an adult (reader). So, Ava and Sean are recruited by UMBRA because of their abilities to see the date of someone’s death (Sean) and how they are going to die (Ava). Technically that makes sense, those abilities could be helpful for a shady secret agency. But then they are asked to infiltrate a local violent gang – without having any training. They are two totally normal teenagers thrown into a world of drug selling, weapon smuggling and human trafficking. Yes, okay, Sean has a knack for adrenaline and risky behaviour but this made no sense, at all. This is a job for experienced undercover agents who know what they are dealing with! Also, the writing style is quite cringy in places. Some dialogues sounded so unrealistic, no teenager talks like that. It made me roll my eyes a lot and sometimes I actually grimaced while reading. Generally, I can see what “Life, Death, and Expiration Dates” wants to be. An action movie for teenagers in book form. And it kind of is that, if you can ignore that a lot of it is over the top and absolutely unrealistic. I actually think that it would work better as a movie. [Thanks to Teal Sunset Press and NetGalley for providing me with an eArc of the book in exchange for an honest review.]